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Canal One

Can the Panama Canal, a relic of the Industrial Revolution, survive in the modern era? That is the question that is haunting Panama, which depends on the canal’s revenue-generating power to help ensure economic stability. As ships grow ever larger, fewer of them are able to squeeze through the narrow canal, despite a $1 billion […]

Holey Ozone, Batman

The ozone hole over the South Pole is roughly a third smaller than its average in recent years and it has split in two, according to researchers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. Last month, the hole (actually a thinning of the layer of ozone that protects the Earth from ultraviolet […]

Alana Paul, Tulane Office of Environmental Affairs

Alana Paul, a junior at Tulane University, works as an energy and climate change specialist in the school’s Office of Environmental Affairs. She is majoring in anthropology and environmental policy. Monday, 30 Sep 2002 NEW ORLEANS, La. Hello from N’Orleans! After living here for three years, I have grown very attached to this city. The […]

Have Plutonium, Will Travel

The Smog Monster

Forty-nine years ago, in November 1953, New York City was stricken with a six-day siege of air pollution so fierce that it killed or contributed to the deaths of 25 to 30 residents a day. That was before scientists really understood what was darkening the skies and choking people on the street. In some respects, […]

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Where Did All the Protesters Go?

Nearly three years after some 20,000 anti-globalization demonstrators all but shut down the city of Seattle, a fraction of that crowd showed up to protest this weekend’s meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, D.C. The disappointing turnout (police, of whom there were plenty, placed the numbers at between 3,000 and […]

Everything Goes Worse With Coke

As if population pressures and the international demand for wood weren’t exacting enough of a toll on tropical ecosystems, here’s another problem: cocaine. In the last 30 years, some 5.7 million acres of Peruvian rainforest have been razed to make way for coca crops, and more than 14,800 tons of toxic chemicals used in the […]

And other words from readers

  Re: I’d Like My C, Under the Sea Dear Editor: The article implies that storing carbon in air pockets under the sea floor is the definition of carbon sequestration. However, the technique is just one of many ways to sequester carbon. Carbon sequestration refers to any way that carbon is removed from the atmosphere. […]

Old Flame

The chemicals in fire-resistant products help keep your home safe — but they appear to be endangering species in the Norwegian Arctic. Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are showing up in high concentrations in the region’s polar bears, whose cubs have a lower survival rate than elsewhere, as well as in the eggs of local seabirds, […]

Klam Bake

In the latest turn of events in the Water Crisis That Won’t Die, state officials in California are considering releasing water into the Klamath River to rescue thousands of salmon dying from unusually high water temperatures in the river. Scientists have counted more than 9,500 dead Chinook salmon near the river’s mouth since Friday, and […]